The Party Movement and Christian Social Teaching

John H. Armstrong: The Party Movement and Christian Social Teaching

… One must understand that this is a movement, not a centralized party or the part of a political party. It is, if you read these blogs, a “starfish” organization. In fact, leaders have used this book to frame the tea party in its development. The movement focuses primarily on limited government and reduced taxation. It combines elements of political libertarianism and populism. While populist movements have grown out of a number of social factors in America’s past one thing makes the tea party movement different—it is not anti-Catholic. In fact, it is big enough to be religiously inclusive since a leading Mormon, Glenn Beck, is a darling to this movement. One recent survey showed that 28% of those in the tea party are Roman Catholics.

What seems to drive this movement is deep anxiety about the future. David O’Brien, professor of faith and culture at the University of Dayton (Catholic) says, “I don’t recall a broad-based Catholic populist upsurge of anything of this variety [in the past].”

Catholic social teaching, which I believe is sound at this point, sees an inseparable link between rights and responsibilities for both citizens and the government. Both should promote “the common good.” The tea party movement argues for rights based on liberty, not so much on responsibility. Catholic theology argues that government and citizen are their “brother’s keeper” in a balanced and healthy way. …

… Father Sirico has taught me a great deal over the last decade. He does once again on this thorny issue. He adds:

The thing Catholics could teach the tea party is that not every social obligation needs to be viewed with suspicion. We recognize that human nature is social as well as individual, and we balance these things out. To say I have an obligation to the poor is [to say] society has an obligation to the poor. It’s not to say that the government should be the first resort for those problems but I think some of the tea party are a little too quick to just dismiss social justice out of hand.

This is why I have so often learned more about Christian social theory from Catholics, especially Catholics like Father Sirico, than from my evangelical friends and sources. Evangelicals, until quite recently, almost never developed such a theology since they were so busy rescuing people from the sinking ship of this cursed world. This strikes me as a primary reason why they jump into movements like the tea party and never stop to ask the kind of questions that thoughtful Catholics are asking. By this I find another compelling reason to embrace missional-ecumenism.